We (Amy and James) spent the four-day Thanksgiving holiday backpacking in the Silver Peak Wilderness area of Los Padres National Forest, hiking a figure eight shaped loop. Besides taking advantage of the holiday break, our goal was to hike some trails we had not previously walked. The weather was spectacularly fine with warm days, clear skies, no wind, no fog, and unexpectedly mild nights. In fact, it felt more like April than the end of November. Below are two map images of the route we walked.

One area of particular interest to us was the Lottie Potrero Trail. While planning this trip, we used the excellent website provided by the Ventana Wilderness Alliance. The VWA is a very effective grass-roots organization whose mission is to protect, preserve, and restore the wilderness qualities and biodiversity of the public lands within California's northern Santa Lucia Mountains and Big Sur coast. Last year we decided to send them a donation whenever we hike in Big Sur, and consider that a form of entrance fee.

This group maintains extensive trail status pages updated by trail users as well as large amounts of other pertinent information. Although it shows up on old Forest Service maps, the VWA didn’t have any public data about the Lottie Potrero Trail, which formed a critical link in our planned route. Lack of data often means one thing in the Big Sur area: the trail is brushed over and has been abandoned by the Forest Service. Those of you who have hiked in the Santa Lucia Mountains have almost certainly experienced how incredibly fast trails can be obliterated by both encroaching vegetation and the loose unstable soils. The Forest Service spends almost no money on trail maintenance and many of the mapped trails have effectively disappeared.

We posted some inquiries about the Lottie Potrero Trail on the VWA and BackpackingLight sites and received encouraging and very helpful responses. These included a GPX track made by someone who had recently been on the northern portion of the trail along with the news that, while not a wilderness freeway or marked on the ground, the trail was mostly findable and useable. It turned out that by Big Sur standards, the trail was actually in better shape than others we have walked and with not too much work, could be resurrected into a decent route. We wouldn’t recommend it to a novice, but it is usable by experienced hikers with a gpx track in hand (although we would not walk it when the leaves are on the poison oak due to encroachment).

The Lottie Potrero Trail descends a fine, wild drainage and leads to some completely unexpected and lovely pocket meadows. It also passes through a Buddhist Hermitage which is part of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition. We quietly and discreetly walked by without seeing anybody. Although the Baldwin Ranch Road is publicly accessible to walkers, the Hermitage is privately owned land, and we do not know if hikers are welcomed or discouraged.

A few others notes:• We had to walk a couple of miles on Highway 1 to connect trails on our route. Fortunately this was at first light Sunday morning, so there was almost no traffic. At other times of day, the number of cars could be bothersome to some people (and potentially even dangerous), although the views from the road are spectacular.• We stealth camped by the edge of the Pacific on a bluff in Pacific Valley. This was a fantastic campsite.• On Thanksgiving, we had the longest and most intense Green Flash sunset either of us had ever seen before. And on Saturday, we had six Green Flashes in rapid succession as the sun spread out into pancake layers as it set.• South Coast Ridge Road is a publicly accessible Forest Service road. However, we saw very few vehicles, even on a perfect-weather holiday weekend. This road is essentially waterless; plan ahead and carry what you might need.• Willow Creek Road is also a publicly accessible road, and it provides access several active inholdings. We saw about a half dozen vehicles when walking this piece of road.

I'd love to see more photos... I've always wondered what San Carpoforo Creek is like upstream along the Lottie Potrero Trail. I have thoughts of hiking lower San Carpoforo Creek someday (assuming it's still accessible).

To answer Nico's questions. First we added a link to some of our photos in the body of the trip report. Yes, the hike was just short of 80 miles. Water is a problem mostly on the South Coast Ridge Road, where there is essentially none. Otherwise, we found decent surface water in quite a few of the westward flowing drainages. Also, water is available along the coast at the Forest Service facilities and at Ragged Point Inn.